


eventide

by armethaumaturgy



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-09-19 16:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17005020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armethaumaturgy/pseuds/armethaumaturgy
Summary: aren't we all a different person overnight?





	1. 1:47AM

**Author's Note:**

> we all got some bad coping mechanisms here's a bunch of them

there's something about nights that makes them tranquil, a little magical. maybe it's the silence and calm, but it's not like the apartment isn't silent all day anyhow.

though, it's not during the day that esper's found on the balcony, sleeves drawn down over his fingers and feet stretched before him, bumping against each other and the railing, as if he wasn't even aware of it. lusa slides the door closed behind himself, if only to keep the draft from leaking inside.

esper's gaze trails up when he registers the presence, takes him in as he is, stained sweatpants and messy hair and all. the dark circles under his eyes do nothing to diminish the strength of his smile. a simple quirk of the lips, but one that reaches his eyes and makes them softer than usual.

he doesn't budge a bit as lusa sits next to him, draws a knee up to his chest and leans his face on it. he's mirroring esper's lack of guard with his own smile.

their shoulders brush each other just a bit, but it's a testament to whatever deital being smiling down on them that esper doesn't move even still, in fact leaning into the touch, this close to resting his head on lusa's shoulder. the need to card his fingers through esper's hair is very much there, very much taking up the forefront of lusa's mind, but all he does is reach into his pocket, fingers curling around a box and pulling it out.

"you forgot these."

esper's eyes don't leave his face, nor does the slight smile fade from his lips. he takes the pack, fingertips reaching from within his hoodie's comfort and holds it there for a moment, looking then at nothing, some uneven splotch of paint on the opposite wall.

lusa's head bumps against esper's, ruffling both their hair even further. a sigh from esper, one bespeaking of content.

"can i kiss you?" he asks into the stretching silence. "you know, before i ruin my breath." lusa huffs through his nose with amusement, wrapping his arms around his knee, holding it in place lest it decide to slip into the tiles.

"i don't care. you can kiss me later."

esper doesn't say anything, doesn't move save for pulling a cigarette and his lighter from the pack, twirling both in his fingers.

"i meant you can kiss me now and also later, if you want."

he's working on being more clear with his words. for both their sakes.

esper pushes against his head, conveying something, something neither of them have the words for. or maybe no language has the right words for it. his eyelashes catch the golden glare of the street lamp and he's leaning in, melding their lips together like it's the most natural thing.

they're both chapped, dry, but also warm and familiar, and it's easy to forget there are other people in the world other than them, that there's a dude speeding 80 in a 50 down their street.

lusa's hand finds its way to esper's cheek, cradles the soft skin and rubs over the edge of those dark circles, forehead tucked against the other's.

"thank you," esper breathes, barely-words that tickle lusa's lips, make him want to kiss him again.

you don't have to thank me, you fucking idiot, he thinks but doesn't say. "you're welcome."

esper places the cigarette between his lips; lusa knows what they look like swollen from being bitten, he knows what they look like when he's smiling, pouting, angry… when they kiss properly, too much too quick. he thinks esper looks like one of those holy paintings when he clicks the lighter and the small flame licks its light across his features.

he doesn't give voice to any of those thought, knows all esper'd do is contradict him, never allowing his mind to acknowledge that lusa meant it.

esper makes sure not to exhale even in his general direction, but the smoke will find its way into both of their hoodies, cling to them like they cling to each other in life. and maybe that's okay. they have a washing machine for a reason.

"you also forgot these," lusa says, toes off his slippers and slides them in front of esper. they're his, the dumb green ones with cat faces on them. like there's such a thing as alien cats.

esper takes a drag, looking down at them while curling and uncurling his toes on the tiles. they're cold as ice by now, no doubt. he'd painted his toenails, lusa can see even with this bad light. doesn't give him an excuse.

"what about you?"

"i don't think they're big enough for the both of us."

"you'll catch a cold if you stay here barefoot."

lusa knows the look he graces esper with is the right one when the other looks away, shoulders squared up as if already expecting a rebuttal to whatever he tries to say. he catches his own hypocrisy and silently slides his feet into the slippers.

lusa's been wearing socks this whole time anyway.

"we can go in when you finish, how's about that?"

esper takes a drag, resists the urge to gag when he inhales it wrong. the smoke curls in the air, pirouettes to high heavens one drag at a time.

when he's done, he puts the cigarette out, fingers curling on their own as he burns a new little mark into his palm. lusa looks away. his hand finds esper's and thumb runs over the mark, as if he could soothe it with touch alone.

"i'm cold," esper breathes, lets lusa hold his hand, wrap it around his cold one. his own way of acquiescing.

a smile blossoms on lusa's face again. he squeezes esper's hand, stands up and waits patiently for esper to follow suit instead of pulling him.

"i can make coffee," lusa offers.

"i think i want to try sleeping tonight. maybe."

lusa had long learned how to hide his elation at words like those. he twines his fingers with esper's, squeezes again. "chocolate?"

"i'd like that."


	2. 10:47PM

you’d think someone as big and strong as lusa would always be rough and tough.

you’d think wrong.

esper’s fingers curl around he ones traversing his chest, so warm and careful. he gets a low, low chuckle for it, and he thinks the world could end right then and there and he wouldn’t mind. the way he grabs onto lusa’s arm and pulls it closer, digging into his ribcage like the other never would, speaks more than any word in any dictionary ever could.

lusa smiles, barely moves his thumb back and forth. it’s too intimate to feel ticklish. esper wants to melt.

“easy there, cowboy. i’m not going anywhere.”

his voice is made lower, huskier with the unending well of emotion within it, and he’s looking at esper with that look.

fuck, that look.

esper can’t even begin to understand the meaning beneath his soft smile, showing just the barest of his dimples, eyes crinkled at the corners, lashes framing the irises that look like they could start brimming with tears at any second. he doesn’t understand it, never had and probably never will, not completely.

but one thing he knows for sure is lusa had never lied to him while wearing it.

he feels his own lips splitting apart, a toothy grin that must look too sharp and nothing like the almost serene way lusa decides to look at him for whatever reason. it’s like he’s a treasured doll, made of porcelain and painted by the most skilled of painters. precious. something to be kept safe.

he feels safe when lusa’s other hand comes down and brushes the messed locks of his fringe out of his eyes.

“i love you,” comes tumbling from his lips, before he can think to stop it, before realizing he wouldn’t want to stop it.

lusa’s eyes fall shut for but a moment, smile widening despite him obviously trying to hold it back. he’s leaning down and slotting his lips against esper’s in the very next breath, and it’s everything esper could’ve ever wanted, soft and pushing, pushing pushing pushing as much as their physical forms let them, with a yearning to get even closer closer closer still.

esper’s arms spread, wrap around lusa’s shoulders like a drowning man would cling to the hope of driftwood, nails digging into the cotton of his shirt looking for purchase.

“and i love you too,” lusa tells him, and maybe such easy, few words shouldn’t make his heart leap in its cage, but they do, and esper could get high off the feeling alone. maybe he already does.

he certainly feels high, with lusa’s alluring scent encompassing him whole, not close enough, never close enough. he’s pulling, pulling, pulling, until the other crashes down on top of him, heavy muscles crushing him in several sensitive spots, and yet he doesn’t mind one bit.

“you want me to fall asleep on you? cause this’s how you get me to fall asleep on you,” lusa laughs, voice twinkling bells and breath a refreshing breeze across esper’s ear, neck. he holds on even tighter, if possible. lusa’s shirt is bunched up within his fingers, whitened from the force.

 _yes_ , he yearns to shout.  _yes, yes, god, yes, please_. but he doesn’t. that’s not funny; he can’t be seriously sappy all the time, can he?

lusa wouldn’t mind. he knows.

“you’d fall asleep on me even if I went for an evening to the moon and didn’t return,” esper scoffs, hiding his faked roll of eyes into the crook of lusa’s neck. he’s teasing on the protruding bones almost on instinct.

“that’d be  _sick_. of course i’d go to the moon with you, that’s romantic as shit.”

“dumbass.”

“dude, you think i’d pass up an opportunity to nap with my boyfriend on the fucking moon? seriously?”

“i think you’re taking this too seriously for your own good.”

“nah. y'know, maybe you’ll get us there both one day.”

esper squeezes lusa against his chest, unseeing eyes glancing through the stained ceiling. he doesn’t say anything for long seconds, doing his damnest to get his hammering heart under control. it takes so long because it doesn’t work.

“i doubt that.”

“and i don’t. i bet you could. and i mean, hell, if you ever wanna go for it, i’ll always be ready to nap on an asteroid with you.”

there’s too much to unpack in there, too much in what had started as a stupid joke. esper rolls over, effectively rolling lusa as well and ending with his back to him, still close enough to feel the warmth of his chest on his back, even through the cotton of his pajamas.

he debates leaving it like that, but it doesn’t seem fair. here’s lusa, trying to be a supportive partner, and esper’s not about to rain on both their parades just because he knows anything he touches will result in a failure.

“i’ll keep it in mind, lusa. you’ll be the first one invited to the moon with me.”

he can taste lusa’s smirk in the air, feel it pressing a fleeting kiss to the nape of his neck, the first few vertebrae he never lets anyone touch. he hears it in the shuffling of clothes and the blanket being thrown over them both, see it in the way lusa curls an arm over his midriff, fingers moving idly, barely, in small, soothing motions across his stomach.

he lets lusa get what he wants, settles into the mattress and his lover alike, unguarded and relaxed and waiting for the other to succumb to lady rest’s sweet embrace before even thinking about his own.

and if he places a hand over lusa’s, traces the callouses, the veins and scars with his thumb, and whispers a quiet thanks to the silence entrapping the room, it’s his own business and no one else’s.


	3. 3:17AM

“esper?”

lusa wipes the crust out of his eyes, sits up and stares at the figure slumped at the edge of their bed. the other doesn’t even look at him, at least not until he stands up and steps away from the bed.

his eyes are wide, and even with a lack of light lusa can see his cheeks are too shiny to be dry.

“are you alright?”

esper nods, but doesn’t move in any other way. “i’m fine.”

he doesn’t sound fine.

“okay,” lusa nods himself. “i’ll be right back.”

esper’s eyes follow him as he leaves the room, and they’re the first thing he notices when he comes back, still trained on the door and now himself.

esper’s shoulders may or may not have relaxed as soon as he came back. they probably did. he knows.

lusa sits on the bed, foregoing the light and all, and hands the steaming mug he’d procured to esper.

“right, so how could i help?” he asks, eyes shining in what little light filters in through the window. esper’s fingers fiddle with the ceramic handle, gaze pointedly cast downwards.

“it’s alright, it’ll pass,” he says. the drink burns his tongue, but warms his throat passing down. he’s not sure what it is. he’s not sure he’d know what anything lusa handed him was. “i’ll be fine in the morning, just go back to bed.”

“you know i can’t do that. want to help you get through it faster.” lusa pulls the blankets esper had let him hog throughout the night, and instead drapes them over his hunched shoulders, tucking them in with more care that esper would like to accept.

if possible, esper hunches even further into himself.

“it’s annoying, i know. i want it to be over already too. that’s why i said you should go back to sleep.”

lusa debates internally on wrapping an arm around him, but then he decides against it and seats himself in front of esper instead, knees folded and that infuriatingly soft smile still on his lips.

“that’s not it, idiot.” the words lack any heat at all, and so esper doesn’t even cringe this time. “i want you to feel better as soon as possible because you don’t deserve any more pain than necessary.”

he seems to hit the right spot, for esper makes a high pitched noise in the back of his throat. or maybe he just chokes and sobs at the same time.

there’s silence for long minutes, silence esper doesn’t seem to like, but lusa gives him the time to compose himself. a little clumsily, he puts the mug onto the bedside table and sits back, the small mountain of blankets that lusa arranged behind him falling over to one side.

“can i…”

“yeah,” lusa says when esper trails off. he’s picking at the hem of his shirt now that he’s not holding the mug anymore.

“can i hug you?”

lusa huffs out a laugh through his nose and shuffles forward to drag esper’s pliant form into his lap. the other all but slumps against him, thin arms squeezing pathetically softly when lusa does the same, enveloping him in warmth.

“you wanna stay like this?” lusa asks, head just by esper’s ear.

there’s a nod against lusa’s shoulder, and then esper must think it went unnoticed because he utters a, “yeah,” into the cotton of lusa’s nightshirt. his hands squeeze handfuls of it at lusa’s back, here and there, like esper’s not even aware of doing it.

“that’s okay. wanna lay down? you might get cold.”

esper mulls the offer over and finally nods again, so lusa maneuvers them down and pulls the blanket back over the both of them. esper visibly relaxes when he wraps the arm around him once more.

“want to talk about it?”

“maybe,” esper answers, after more silence. lusa doesn’t mind waiting.

“d'you know what happened?”

“i was thinking.”

“what about?”

“that i’m not really that good, you know.”

lusa hums, hugs him closer still. “and you started feeling bad?”

they lapse into another silence, their breathing the only sound in the room. then esper curls up, even though he’s held, and-

“yeah.”

it’s absolutely stupid, he knows. he knows he shouldn’t be having a breakdown over something like this, especially not as often as he does, but now that he thinks about it, he’d been foregoing his medications and the moon outside was full. he’s not sure why he’s factoring in the fucking moon phase, but he is. whatever.

“thank you for telling me,” lusa says. he’s using that voice, the one that’s reserved for this alone, and esper kind of wants to start crying again. “i think you’re good.”

“do you really?”

“yeah. you got me the new chocolate bar today, the one from the ad.”

esper can’t help but snort out. he holds onto lusa’s back tighter, even though the arm that’s trapped beneath lusa is starting to cramp a bit. “that’s a dumb thing to base one’s goodness on,” he says.

“it’s something concrete, y'know.” he knows lusa would be shrugging were it not for their current position. “you do plenty nice stuff. that was just the most recent one, i think.”

“yeah…”

“do you know why you feel you’re not good?”

“i don’t,” esper confesses after a while, and it sounds small and lusa hates that he’s making himself feel worse over feeling bad.

“that’s okay. i’ll fight the gremlin in your brain telling you that.”

he manages to pull another snort out of esper, and counts it as a small victory. “please don’t, i need my dumb brain.”

there’s a moment there that lusa thinks esper had managed to fall asleep, but he surprises him by piping up again.

“will you, um…”

“yeah?”

“will you be here in the morning?”

“i’m here every morning, i live here,” lusa tells him. “i will be here every morning, no matter what.”

esper squeezes him again, crushing his open chest against lusa’s more than anything else. “hey lusa?”

“yeah?”

“thank you.”

“s'okay, love. go to sleep, we can go over it more in the morning, if you want.”

more silence. lusa wonders whether esper listened to him and went to sleep already.

“yeah.”

not yet, then. that’s okay, too.


	4. 10:14PM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alcohol in this chapter//

esper’s hand is as steady as ever when he hands lusa his glass. on the contrary, it’s lusa’s hand that shakes when he takes it, slamming the glass back in what appears to not be even two full gulps.

he doesn’t notice the whiskey has been watered down.

esper takes the glass and refills it from the bottle that had, magically, returned to three-quarters full in the middle of the night. he says nothing, just reaches over and runs a hand through lusa’s hair. it’s wild, from his hands tugging at it, from laying on his arm, from everything.

“sometimes i wonder if it’s worth it. like, more than usual,” lusa slurs, muffled in the crook of his elbow when he finally notices esper isn’t handing him the glass yet.

“hm?”

“life,” lusa says, as if that explained it. he’s a little too drunk to actually make any sense, or keep on one topic for more than five minutes worth of attention span, but the worst part is esper knows what he means. “it’s like a cycle of bullshit over and over.”

“mmhm.”

“but.”

lusa falls silent, eyeing him like someone would an expensive trinket in the window of a shop they felt the pull to buy on first glance. there’s something soft in the edges of his eyes, in the creases of his small squint. the lights are probably too bright for him by now.

“but?” esper prompts, nudging lusa’s elbow with his. he contemplates using the glass as a bribe, or maybe leaning over and tasting the whiskey from the other’s tongue.

“but then i see you.” lusa’s eyes take on a glint, something soft and homey, and it feels, for a split second, as though he’s looking through esper, right at his heart or spirit or whatever the hell inhabits his dumb shell of a body, and can’t contain his pure adoration. “and i think, fuck– fuck, i–”

lusa sways, his chair leg scraping painfully against the floor. esper reaches out, yanks him by his unbuttoned sleeve, and helps him regain his stability.

“you’re drunk as a skunk,” he says.

lusa nods. “maybe so. but i gotta say this, dude. listen to me.”

so esper does. but he takes the glass sitting between them and pours it down his own throat. it doesn’t sting as bad as it would have without the brake. he reaches behind himself to lay the bottle onto the counter, as far away as his arm lets him.

“i look at you and, fuck, it’s like the world’s like. good.”

“you’re just gay,” esper remarks. he tries not smiling at his own joke, or blush at lusa’s words, but it seems he’s failing both, and very spectacularly at that.

“fuck yeah i am. but it’s true, it’s like you just, i dunno.”

“we should get you into bed.”

“drunk sex? kinky.”

“you’re too drunk even for that. shut up.”

“i love you.”

“yes, yes, now come on.”

“es, listen–” and there’s something in the tone that makes esper pause, midway through leaning over to pull lusa up and haul him to bed to sleep his drunkenness off. “i… i know i’m drunk. but i still mean it, i do love you.”

“and i love you, you big, drunk oaf,” esper laughs. he leans down, thinks twice about it and then presses a kiss to lusa’s forehead. the smell of alcohol is heavy between them, spreads in the whole kitchen, so maybe it’s a good idea to leave and go to an untainted room.

it’s a little too much to hope to get lusa in the shower at this point.

“you just gonna wallow?” esper asks, one corner of his lips tugging up unconsciously. “or you gonna get a glass of water for your morning hangover now?”

“you’re always so fucking forthright. it’s creepy.”

“that’s my middle name.”

“no, it’s not. your middle name is edward.”

“no, it’s definitely creepy. esper creepy grenore. there’s also a ‘fucking’ in there somewhere.”

“fuck you.”

“maybe when you’re sober, okay?”

“mm, ’m gonna sleep it off,” lusa says.

he only sways a little when he gets up. esper trusts him not to kill himself on the way to the bedroom, but he still flits behind him and pulls out a pair or pajamas that lusa immediately knocks out of his hands. instead, he clamors into the bed after shucking his sweats and shirt, and esper sighs. he’ll wake up cold.

“haven’t you forgotten something?”

lusa looks sideways at him, misty eyes and falling eyelids. “hm?”

“you were supposed to prepare water for the morning.”

lusa groans and turns over, burying his face into the pillow. his back moves along with his slowed breathing and esper sighs. there’s a smile on his lips.

he grabs a glass from the bathroom, the one they usually use for brushing their teeth, and runs the tap. it’s not like lusa will be able to tell in the morning anyway.

and maybe he’ll even leave meds on the bedside table.

and maybe, just maybe, he’ll tell lusa he loves him just as much. when he’s not drunk. when he’s sure lusa will absolutely remember it.

well, maybe. who knows what the morning will bring.

(he knows. it will be hours of lusa complaining about his hangover. maybe some placating kisses. all good things.)

(maybe good things.)


End file.
